Post Office employees to have appeals fast-tracked to allow them to clear their names

Ministers have pledged to lastly clear the names of the Post Office employees hit by the Horizon scandal.

Up to 900 sub-postmasters have been wrongly convicted after the defective IT Horizon system made it appear like cash was lacking from their retailers. But to this point simply 93 have had their convictions quashed.

The Government yesterday introduced it was drawing up plans to fast-track the appeals course of so all of the victims may be exonerated. Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake informed MPs that Justice Secretary Alex Chalk will seek the advice of with senior judges earlier than placing ahead the adjustments.

“We have devised some options for resolving the outstanding criminal convictions with much more pace,” he mentioned following an emergency assembly this afternoon. “I’m confident that we should be able to implement measures which address the concerns expressed. And I hope the Government shall be able to announce these proposals to the house very shortly.”

Mr Hollinrake admitted the Government was involved concerning the “slow pace which criminal convictions related to Horizon are being overturned by the courts”. “This is not just a matter of getting justice for those wrongly convicted, overturning their convictions is also key to unlocking compensation,” he added.

The minister mentioned the Government would additionally look at the way in which wherein non-public prosecutions have been utilized by the Post Office. “If we are to make sure that a scandal like this can never happen again we need to look at the way in which private prosecutions like these have been undertaken,” he mentioned.

Ministers have been beneath rising stress to behave after tens of millions watched an ITV drama portrayed how former sub-postmaster Alan Bates helped expose the scandal.

MPs and friends have demanded ministers take radical motion in order that justice may be delivered.

Former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland informed Times Radio: “It’s an unprecedented situation. We’ve never seen such a great number of innocent people being wrongfully convicted. People providing an important service in our local communities who, because of a dodgy IT system, have ended up on the wrong side of the law, some of whom have lost their lives and many of whom are living with their families with the consequences of it. And therefore an exceptional series of cases like this requires an exceptional response, and that’s why I think legislation should be considered now.”

Professor Chris Hodges, chair of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, warned the present preparations wouldn’t ship the result “we all want to see, which is that all of these convictions are overturned”. “The obvious thing to do is the right thing to do, which is for Parliament to pass a very simple act overturning all of them,” he informed BBC Radio 4. “The trouble is otherwise you get into the weeds of an enormously slow and complex system, which is moving very slowly. It takes ages and it has taken too long already.”

Lord Arbuthnot, who has campaigned on behalf of postmasters for 15 years, supported the thought as he warned the Government will face electoral “suicide” in the event that they fail to kind this earlier than voters have their say later this 12 months. He informed Sky News: “One of the best issues is that there have been between 700 and 900 convictions of subpostmasters and solely 93 have been overturned. That is an awfully small, pathetically small quantity.

“I think that this is a mass problem which has got to be dealt with in a mass way, and I think that Parliament has got to step in and say that Post Office convictions are not safe. We’ve seen the way that investigators behaved and they behaved in a way which was contrary to the rule of law. These convictions have got to be set aside.”

Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor, said ministers could take immediate action. “Everybody agrees that it will take years to get rid of those other 800 convictions unless there is a change in procedure,” he informed BBC Radio 5 Live. The Government may introduce that tomorrow and there can be no resistance in Parliament.”